Stunted Growth

I am sad to report that the summer garden patch that I shared with a friend on the Elmhurst Park District Meadow was a bust.

A large section of the center of the plot seemed to be extra hard clay, right where most of the tomatoes were planted. If the land had been in my own yard, I would have started out by properly amending the soil and creating the kind of earth in which a tomato would like to grow. My garden partner declared the scene a case of “stunted growth.” One day, she even planted new, larger tomato plants in the plot. It was all for naught.

This year, I planted far more tomato plants than I ever had, resulting in my smallest tomato harvest ever. I tried, really, I did, but weeds took over and plants withered. It was downright embarrassing to see the neighboring plots lush with peppers, beans and squash. I can now add GD, “Gardening Dysfunction,” to the list of what ails me.

The two highlights of the season were cucumbers and flowers. My family enjoyed several fresh cucumbers and bouquets of cosmos and zinnias. I loved having vases of cut flowers on the kitchen table.

I’m pretty easy to please, so I’m not truly complaining about the garden adventure. It’s more like moping. And I’m not even very good at that. While tending to three growing children and one part time job, I’m supposed to be finding a job that provides health insurance. I do not have leisure to sulk. Being one disease or mishap away from disaster is no fun. Half of the time, I fear that the stress of my hyper-thrifty lifestyle will cause a dreadful illness that would only be curable if I had good health insurance.

The other half finds me filled with joy, taking my kids to the ribbon cutting at the new playground in Wilder Park, visiting beaches on Lake Michigan with them in the summer, spending time with extended family in Iowa, cheering for my Elmhurst Eagles cheerleader, and now volunteering for the Hawthorne PTA as a box-top mom for two classrooms. I am home to greet them almost every day when the school bus pulls up to our corner. Monthly late start mornings are no problem for us, although I do weather quite a few complaints about the need for meals at home 99% of the week!

My three little sprouts are very happy with their mother’s one-job schedule. When they get a bit cranky about not having all the new toys or clothes they want, we visit the Goodwill store at North Avenue and Route 83. They like the adventure of not knowing what may turn up at the thrift store. Once, last year, my eldest pulled an American Girl Doll Bitty Baby from a Goodwill bin. The thrift bug bit her that day. The mantra of the second hand shop devotee is “new stock daily.” One never knows what treasures may be in store.

Lately, I’ve been taking fitness classes at the Elmhurst YMCA and I spend quite a bit of time running on treadmills there. They have free childcare for members and my toddler adores the babysitting staff. The exercise machines have personal television screens attached to them. I tend to watch shows like House Hunters and House Hunters International as I attempt to zone out and achieve some kind of runner’s high. (By the way, that never happens.)

I have become much more aware of how spoiled Americans are. Egad, people have fits over granite countertops and hardwood flooring. They want master suites far away from their children. They want game rooms, dens, media rooms, family rooms and “man caves,” all in the same house! They require bathrooms that Europeans from crowded cities could live in. (Don’t get me started on what Americans think of bidets!) I saw an episode where a woman ruled out an entire home because it had a powder room off of the family room. “Disgusting,” she said. The other bathrooms were on the second floor of the building. She was a newlywed with no children. All I could think was “Lady, just wait until your child looks green in the face and careens towards you in your family room. Good luck making it up the stairs in time.”

A lot of people in our country have, or want to have, a lot of stuff and a lot of space to put that stuff. They want big houses and bigger things. Case in point: my coffeemaker broke. I took a 30 percent off coupon over to Kohl’s last month to buy a new one. Coffeemakers are now huge brewing systems with more settings and buttons than I need. They take up way too much counter space for my 100-year-old house. I left the store empty-handed. Instead, last week, I bought a 3-cup French Press at Target for $16.80. You don’t need a filter; I’m saving the environment. Plus, my husband has now achieved caffeine nirvana. For a man who prefers to brew his java in 1930's glass vacuum pots, that's saying a lot. (Elijah's will brew French press coffee for you if you want to try it.)

We have enough, as it turns out. With food stamps that allow me to go to the grocery store, barring a medical situation, we can survive for a few more months.

That’s pretty unusual in this world when you think about it. I can’t even watch the news coverage of children starving in Somalia (you can try, here’s a link.) I’ve lost track of the number of recent earthquakes that have devastated towns and almost entire countries. Knowing that real desperate poverty exists in the world makes my own woes look rather flimsy.

In an effort to both teach my kids the value of money and to show them that they can help someone else’s life in a meaningful way, I recently placed two envelopes in front of them. One envelope is marked “Spring Break.” If we save enough money in it by next March, they can enjoy a day and night at a water park hotel.

The other is marked “Feed a Starving Baby.”

Many reputable charitable organizations exist to distribute food to hungry people. I gave the kids a catalogue from Samaritan’s Purse that shows you various worthy projects in need of donations. For only $9, we can feed a starving baby for a week. If our family has enough to eat, I think, how could we not help another person feed their child? It truly is the least we can do.

A night of Spring Break may or may not happen but I am glad to report that we’ve got $9.05 in the baby-feeding fund. My older kids receive a $2 weekly allowance. So far, they have offered up their nickels, dimes, pennies and occasional quarters. I’d like to sell their Halloween candy to the dentist but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

And so I find myself in a strange situation. Working, but not full time, at a musical job that I really enjoy. As far as salary and benefits go, I have stunted career growth. I can’t buy new boots or a flat screen TV. Our consumer society would call me a failure, and I should feel very bad about that.

But, I think I'm pretty happy. I have amended my soul. The garden that nurtures my children has been well tended this summer. As I attempt to figure out what to do next, I’ll labor at keeping the weeds at bay. During the holiday season, we will try to help someone else’s child live because they also deserve the chance to grow.

Won't You Feed Thy Neighbor?

On May 13, the job that I held for sixteen years left me. Although it provided the main source of my family's income, it was in the not-for-profit performing arts field. Therefore, it did not pay very much but it had allowed me to do a lot of work from my office at home. Suffice it to say that I have always been frugal. Since then, summer break has come for my elementary school-aged daughters. I also have a toddler. Kids at home plus part-time job at church plus working on garden plus job searching have now swallowed up my every moment.

Job searching, all I can say is, “ugh”! It is much harder for me to LOOK for a job than to HAVE a job. Recently, I've had some wonderful conversations with people who became unemployed. Some have successfully found new jobs. One pal, a true job search guru, has eagerly taken on the task of reading my resumes and cover letters. He is going to stage a mock interview for me next week. That is what gurus do for their friends.

As I prepare to take on interview questions such as “Where do you see yourself in five years?” (“Here, of course, happily employed by your company.”), I wrestle with the larger question that the employment project brings to light. What kind of person am I?

I think that most of us could come up with a list. I am the kind of person who is a mother, wife, sister, a daughter, and a neighbor. I am the kind of person who sings, writes and teaches music. I am the kind of person who gives time and money to charitable organizations and events.

Today, I became the kind of person who shops at the food pantry.

My spouse was commenting this morning on the lack of groceries in our house and the need for us to do the grocery shopping. “What money,” I asked, “would you like for me to use at the store?” I guess the reality of the income loss hasn’t sunk in yet. Or he really does think that money grows on trees.

I proceeded to create a fabulous lunch menu of grilled cheese sandwiches, Michigan strawberries macerated in sugar, glasses of milk, and side dishes of Pirate’s Booty. This was all from the “nothing” that we had at home. There were no complaints from the customers at Mom’s Diner. My littlest kid, who doesn’t talk yet, clearly communicated his desire to eat more strawberries. Washing the sticky red goodness off of his hands was quite a project. No one went hungry.

Still, it was obvious today that the pantry will become bare.

I stopped by my church and got the phone number for a local food pantry housed at another church. A very nice person answered the phone and told me what to bring to sign up. Clients are permitted to shop once per month. The pantry was open today.

At the appointed hour, I arrived and joined a small line of folks in a parking lot. I was advised right away, “Go get your number, dear.” It was a very high number, until one of the others told me that a lot of the numbers were missing.

With no shade on a sunny afternoon, I could feel myself starting to burn. My line-mates advised against leaving my place in the queue. Even with a number, this group resents people who do not honestly wait their turn.

And wait I did, for over an hour. During that time, I enjoyed some friendly and informative conversation about where the other food pantries in this County are located. Especially valuable were the reviews of those facilities. Some places are “totally worth the gas money” and others were “don’t bother, I waited all morning for one small bag and a tube of toothpaste.”

The majority of the shoppers were women, senior citizens. One jovial older fellow joined us, gleefully saying, “It must be ladies day!” Two young couples arrived, both with small babies. Infants who were about to get sun burned. The group unanimously gave the parents permission to stand around the corner, in the shade, without giving up their spot. Tales of jobs lost are the common bond among those of us who are not elderly.

Once inside, I found the volunteer staff to be gracious, hard-working, well-organized and kind. Except for the rotten produce that was offered to me, everything else that I received was genuinely useful, edible and helpful. While selecting items from different shelves, I took a pass on things that I really wouldn’t serve to my kids. I just don't think hamburger needs help. Some good surprises where non-sugary cereals, oatmeal, all purpose cleaner and name brand toothpaste.

Sincerely grateful for the gift of non-perishable items, I took the bags home. My curious kids gathered around. A can of Pringles scored the highest on the squeal-o-meter. As one of them said, “It just doesn’t seem like stuff YOU would buy.”

That’s OK with me. Mom’s Diner pulled off bird’s nests of whole-wheat pasta, sautéed chicken thighs, and broccoli for dinner plus ice cream for dessert. This is a major feast in most parts of the world, I assure you.

Later this week, I have a music gig. My favorite grocery store is on the way home. My cart will be full of things that I would buy. It will also include tasty goods to give away. The Pastor of my church likes to remind the congregation to think of the “Buy One, Get One” items at the grocery store as “Buy One, GIVE One” opportunities.

What kind of person am I? Today, I became the kind of person who donates regularly to the food pantry.

Lost My Job, Gonna Plant Some Seeds

Sudden unemployment means more time to plant a garden. A journey of job searching and growing fresh vegetables begins this week. Here's the latest post that I've submitted to my blog on the Elmhurst Patch online news:

Last week, after sixteen years as a performer and a manager for a not-for-profit performing arts company, I lost my job. The economy caught up with the ensemble and there's nothing left to pay my management salary with and that's that. The funny part of this is that when I changed my job status on my Facebook profile, my personal world of friends was notified that "Susan has left her job at..." Unfortunately, the job left me.

Even though this is a tremendous personal tragedy for my immediate family (buh bye health insurance), it's happened so often over the past few years to other folks that I know around town that it hardly seems worth mentioning. I had a picnic lunch today with other moms and kids at Wilder park during the lunch break at Hawthorne school. Amidst the warmth, sunshine, sandwiches and squealing kids, it did not seem appropriate to answer mundane greetings of "Hi, how are you?" with, "I'm unemployed and applying for food stamps, how are you?"

Thirteen years ago, when I moved to Elmhurst to join my soon-to-be husband in the house that he purchased, I looked out on the expanse of our suburban lot and thought "Why isn't he growing tomatoes?" The small 1920's Chicago bungalow that I was raised in housed 9 people and a large assortment of dogs, cats, newts and goldfish. The backyard included a one car garage, an apple tree, and space for a garden. My Polish grandpa grew food there, in beautiful rows, on trellises, and tied to stakes. He started from seeds sown in boxes like little greenhouses made out of old windows. I remember tomatoes, radishes, lettuce, green peppers, strawberries, raspberries, green onions, cucumbers, green beans and sometimes corn. We kept a salt shaker on a shelf by the garage door. If grandpa said something was ripe and ready to be eaten, we could pluck it, wash it with the hose, throw a dash of salt on it and snack right there in the yard.

I quickly corrected my husband's lack of fresh veggies by sneaking some cherry and slicing tomatoes into a corner between our garage and the alley. I draped cucumbers over the back fence. He was hooked on the taste after our first harvest, but not enough to rip up the yard itself. In the meantime, I was busy removing dense shrubbery from the 1950's and carving out real flower beds to help me answer another burning question I had, "Why don't we have any flowers to cut and put in vases?" I let my dreams of a real home garden slide the day that we transported a slightly used play set from down the block, re-built and stained it and declared the area open to the kids.

I thought I was never leaving the job. The company had a succession plan that involved the founder eventually retiring from many of her daily duties and handing the responsibilities over to me. Suddenly, that is not to be, and my ability to buy food for my family will rapidly disappear until I find a new position. I have never wanted a garden more that I want one now.

I expressed this desire to Jan Happel of Heaven and Earth Growers and she offered to share a plot that she has reserved through the Elmhurst Park District at Golden Meadows. Surplus from my gardening attempts would be donated to H&E. The clouds of gloom over my head parted and my first thought was "Thank goodness I have more time to garden now!"

I'm so excited that I don't know what to plant. What will grow from seed? What do I need to buy as seedlings? How do you make straight rows? Suggestions and advice are most appreciated.

As I stumble to get my professional act together and find a career, while I negotiate stacks of government paperwork and internet forms, I'll be watering, weeding and watching. I'll have three little helpers by my side and sometimes, we'll be singing the song by Dave Mallett, "Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow."

Do You Have Miss Piggy?

In 2011, my sister Sharon, who is my junior by 18 months, and I are the mothers of a total of five children, aged one to ten years. Along with our older brother, Scott, in 1969, we were the target audience for a new style of television show aimed at pre-school aged kids. That program was Sesame Street. The Muppet characters created for it by Jim Henson became staples of our toy collection. Sharon acquired Bert and Ernie, Grover, Kermit, and Big Bird. I also recall the Cookie Monster finding his way into our room, where he could join in the fun with our Cher and Wonder Woman dolls, and add his voice to the singing of Barbie-sized Donny and Marie. Somehow, they all fit in one bedroom on the first floor of the two-story Chicago bungalow that our family shared with grand parents and an assortment of pets.

We continued to watch Sesame Street well into the 1970’s because we had added two younger sisters to the bedroom in 1972. Highlights of the year 1976 included painting the bedroom a red, white, and “Navoo” blue bi-centennial motif, and the debut of The Muppet Show on TV (Cue theme: “It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights…”). We were introduced to Fozzie Bear, Rowlf, Animal, the Swedish Chef and best of all, the glamorous, liberated, karate-chopping, Miss Piggy! With a whole new cast of toy Muppet characters to amass, Sharon decided to ask Santa Claus for a Miss Piggy doll. So did thousands of other children. I think this was the same year that I asked for a Baby That-Away doll (“Getting into trouble, crawling to and fro...she’s the spunky little girl who’s always on the go.”)

Baby That-Away was not as hard to find as Miss Piggy was. The Miss Piggy craze left bare shelves at many toy stores.

Being a little older than Sharon and possibly more aware of how presents from Santa made their way to our tree on Christmas morning, I recall my mother and my grandmother searching for the elusive Miss Piggy doll. My mother recently said, “After failing to find Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots for Scott one Christmas, I was determined not to fail at finding Miss Piggy.” We had one telephone hard-wired to the wall in the kitchen on each floor of the house. Mom made the calls upstairs at Grandma’s kitchen table, so that Sharon couldn’t hear, as Grandma looked up toy and department store numbers in the phone book.

Dialing Toys-R-Us, K-Mart, Sears at 6 Corners, Goldblatt's at Belmont-Central, Weiboldt's at HIP, and Marshall Field's downtown, she says, “The first few calls started out with "Hello. I'm looking for a Miss Piggy doll for my daughter. They're very hard to find. Do you happen to have any in stock?" By the 4th or 5th call, I fell into a natural rhythm cutting out the unnecessary words, "Hello, DO YOU HAVE MISS PIGGY?" After a few of these calls, I looked at Gram and laughed at how I sounded making these calls. It sounded like Miss Piggy had been kidnapped and held for ransom at some unknown toy store in Chicagoland and I was determined to find and rescue her.”

In my hazy, childish recollection of the scene, I see my Grandmother flipping yellow pages, my mom dialing the phone, with one hand holding the receiver to her ear and one hand over the other ear, making it easier to hear the call. Repeatedly she frantically asks, “DO YOU HAVE MISS PIGGY?” Then, I remember the laughing, because this was a ridiculous question. One child’s dearest Christmas wish was riding on the answer. Mom phoned other Sears, Goldblatt’s, and Weiboldt’s locations as well as every small toy store in the book.

Eventually, Mom was triumphant and found Miss Piggy in a discount toy store on Devon Avenue in the North Town neighborhood of the city. “Kind of a messy store…but there she was!” Christmas was saved as Sharon received and cherished Miss Piggy. When we got older, the phrase, “DO YOU HAVE MISS PIGGY?” became a family motto, used to remind us to be indefatigable and that perseverance had its rewards.

A decade later, I had a friend at Northwestern University who was also captivated by the Muppets. Craig Shemin lived down the hall from me in a dorm that was full of Radio-TV-Film majors, plus theater, journalism, musicians and other creative types. As far as I know, he always wanted to grow up to become a writer for the Muppets. So he did, interning for Henson Associates during the summertime and going to work for what was to become the Jim Henson Company as a staff writer after graduating.

Presently, Craig is the President of the Jim Henson Legacy, an organization dedicated to preserving and perpetuating Jim Henson’s contributions to the worlds of puppetry, television, motion pictures, special effects and media technology. The Jim Henson Legacy and The Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service created an exhibit, “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” that stopped in Chicago for a few months at the Museum of Science and Industry. It was being marketed around town as “Muppets at the Museum”.

Craig sent a message to me early in the run of the exhibit that said, “go see it”. Autumn turned into Christmastime and I had not been able to get to the museum. Time to see it was running out and, sensing that I would have to be an idiot to not go and visit an exhibit that one of my friends worked on (with the Smithsonian, no less), I told my sister, Sharon, that I had to go during her holiday visit to Chicago. Sharon was equally eager to go as she had added two Ukrainian High School exchange students to her entourage.

We had a bit of fun getting in to the museum that day, caravanning with relatives and the Ukrainians down to Hyde Park. We arrived in two cars right after the museum opened and I had to wind the stroller with my 11-month old son, Nolan, through a long crowd-control maze to get up to the ticket window. My sister took off to get into a different line in order to purchase a membership to the Museum. By the time I approached the window, Nolan was sliding out of his seat and wailing, 8-year-old Laurel and 6-year-old Lena were twirling around and playing with the fabric holding the maze together, and an already customer-weary museum employee began quizzing me about my ticket needs for the day. "Two kids, 1 adult and 1 infant, please, and I also need tickets for the Muppets," I told her. She tapped on her keyboard and said, "The earliest I can get you in to the Muppets is 2:45pm, is that going to be OK?" "2:45pm?” As the baby screamed for attention I said, “It's 10 o'clock in the morning and we can't see the Muppets until 2:45pm? "Yes, Ma'am, it's for your own protection." "My own protection?" I asked, imagining hotel housekeepers sanitizing the Muppets in between shows. "Yes, Ma'am, for crowd control." I visualized an angry mob of Muppet Vikings leaving a path of destruction behind them as I pondered an over-crowded exhibit. "Oh, um, I need to get in at the same time as my sister and she's in the member line. (Laurel, catch Nolan!)" "You'd better tell her to come over here right now, because now the next available tickets are for 3:00pm, and, you'd better hurry before it sells out for the day."

Briefly, I wondered if announcing, “I know CRAIG SHEMIN” would do any good towards procuring admission. Knowing that it wouldn’t, I pulled a cell phone out of my purse and dialed my sister, ridiculously sending signals to a cell tower somewhere so that I could speak to a person who was in the same room that I was in. A large crowd separated us. Then, I found out, that since we were in the Museum of SCIENCE and INDUSTRY, our cell phones didn’t work. Rather, they barely worked, and when she answered, the call was breaking up. I began shouting "BUY MUPPET TICKETS, NOW!" into the phone, but Sharon heard only the vowels. I could only hear consonants in reply. The museum employee, who very kindly did not roll her eyes at me, ran out of patience and said, "What is your sister's member number?" "I don't know, she's in that big line and the phones don't work here." "Well, do you want the tickets? It will be sold out, SOON." I sent Laurel off to find her aunt in the other line, “Tell Aunt Sharon to BUY MUPPET TICKETS, NOW!” and then turned back to the museum employee. "Yes, yes, I'll take the tickets. The Muppets are the reason we came today.” I said, as if it mattered to the museum employee why a crazy lady with a screaming baby decided to come to one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chicago during Winter Break week.

Finally, with the rest of our party, all with Muppet tickets safely in hand, we embarked on our journey through “Christmas Around the World”, a huge exhibit on weather called “Science Storms”, a Chicago street from the World’s Fair of 1893 and the Fairy Castle. This was fun for some people. My 6-year-old, Lena, is terrified of tornadoes and certain that one is headed for our house every time it drizzles. The tornado vortex and the interior lightning bolts were not for her. Begging to see the Muppets and/or go home commenced early during the day. “Mom, WHEN can we see the Muppets?” “Not yet. Hey, look at the Christmas tree from Sweden!”

The place was packed with families, so much so that I could not even get in the elevator with the baby stroller and ended up carrying the boy in one arm while I hauled the stroller down a flight of stairs with the other arm to get to the cafeteria at lunchtime. No tables were available. Sharon scored a corner of the floor next to a kinetic motion sculpture where we enjoyed a picnic amidst the hubbub. Before the luncheon was finished, Lena piped up, “NOW can we see the Muppets?”

“Nope, not yet.” I said, as we visited the "Farm Tech" exhibit that proclaimed the wonders of modern farming. (Isn't it great that pork is so clean now, modern hog farms, not "factories", don't let the pigs outside to wallow mud! Putting her in a crate that immobilizes her solves the “problem” of a sow crushing her piglets! How fun for the pigs!) Sponsors included Archer Daniels Midland. “Mom, Muppets, PLEASE!”

At last, the appointed time arrived and we took our Muppet tickets to the very colorful entrance of “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World.” The ticket system worked and it was not overcrowded inside. It was downright peaceful. Subdued lighting showcased notes, scripts, and storyboards from Mr. Henson’s projects. We laughed at videos of commercials from early in his career, especially the one of the La Choy Dragon, touting chow mein “Quick cooked by dragon fire”. We saw Bert and Ernie in the foam-flesh, and the kids quickly ran off to take part in a puppet show.

I was absorbed in reading all of the framed notes, moving slowly along the wall towards the puppet show area when I turned a corner and there she was, Miss Piggy! Elegantly enshrined in a plexiglass box and resplendently bedecked in the wedding gown that she wore in the movie “The Muppets Take Manhattan”, THE Miss Piggy stood next to her own wedding cake topper. I audibly gasped, then held my breath for a moment. Cameras were not allowed in the room, but many people pulled out their cell phones to get a shot of her. It was a wonderful and strange moment to view Miss Piggy in a state of stillness. Although, to me, she is a lively character, She could not fully be Miss Piggy without Frank Oz. My friend Craig wrote, “She is molded from foam rubber and then covered with flocking material in a special electro-static process.” She was beautiful.

As we may never meet again, I reluctantly walked past Miss Piggy. My daughters and nieces were laughing at a documentary about the Muppets that featured a sketch from “The Muppet Show” during which a Muppet sings “I Feel Pretty” as she removes and replaces her own features while becoming progressively more monstrous looking. I tried to read every caption and bit of information hanging in the gallery. The drawings from spots that ran on Sesame Street for numbers, like “The King of Eight”, made me laugh. I got teary-eyed when I saw my friend’s name, “Craig Shemin”, on a plaque near the exit door. I did not want to leave this haven of imagination. Inside, I could believe that my own dreams and talents amounted to something. Outside, winter cold and the demands of the lives that depend on me ruled my thoughts and kept me awake at night with little time to dream.

Driving away that afternoon, I was very grateful for the opportunity to visit a terrific museum with my family. It gives me tremendous satisfaction to know that it was possible for a few brief moments in Chicago to say, “BUY MUPPET TICKETS NOW! THEY HAVE MISS PIGGY!”